


The Questions

by Atisketatasket26



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:33:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29527848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atisketatasket26/pseuds/Atisketatasket26
Summary: Thirty-six questions scientifically proven to make two people fall in love. Will it work?
Kudos: 5





	The Questions

“No, I swear,” Marian insisted. “This is scientifically researched, it works.” She had just emailed him the first set of questions.   
“No, no, I believe you,” Andrew laughed. “Some of these questions sound remarkably like interview questions, though. Are they all trying to woo me?”  
“Probably,” she joked. “Just….no rush, but when you get done will you email me your answers?”  
“I’ve pulled it up on my Mac,” he countered. “Can I just hammer through some of these now?”  
Marian thought this over. She had read an article in The New York Times about the thirty-six questions that psychologist Arthur Aron said would cause anyone to fall in love. The idea behind this was that vulnerability fostered a deeper connection. This made sense to Marian. As a data analyst for a research lab, she liked things she could graph and track. Boiling love down to a science made it more reasonable to her. She had bookmarked the article, saving the questions for someone truly worthy of them. Andrew seemed to fit that criteria so far. He was so sweet and soft-spoken, but had a wicked sense of humor. He was intelligent, and had the rare quality of never boring of her endless statistical chats. He seemed to appreciate a nice scientifically proven fact as much as she did.   
“Alright, number one,” Andrew cleared his throat. “Anyone in the world as my dinner guest? No brainer, Tom Waits, so I could get him drunk and beg him to collaborate. Number two, would I like to be famous?”  
“A bit too late for that one,” she cut in.   
“Fucking no, I would not,” he finished. “Moving on. Do I rehearse what I say before I make a telephone call? Always. Are you supposed to be answering these back, am I being rude?”  
“I’ve already typed up my answers,” she assured him. He gave a knowing chuckle. Of course she had. “I’ll send them to you when we get done.”  
“Fair enough. Number five, then. A perfect day? Right now, it would be being able to actually see you.”  
“Yeah, for me too,” she sighed. “This long distance thing is not as fun as I thought it would be.” A sad silence hung between them, and then he cleared his throat and moved on.   
“When did I last sing to other people? About an hour ago, at soundcheck..”

He went through the rest of the list, answering each one thoughtfully. When he got to number twelve, he chuckled to himself.  
“What?” she asked, letting out a giggle in spite of herself.   
“Well the ability I would give myself would be teleportation, I was just thinking of what I could do with that.”  
“Oh?” she asked coyly. “Where would you teleport to?”  
“There’s a certain bed in Chicago that I wouldn’t mind waking up in,” he answered.   
“Oh is there?” But the conversation was cut short, he had to get back to work. Marian opened her laptop up, sending him her own answers. At the end of the email, she attached the second set of questions.   
He sent her the answers back the next morning. Marian read them over, she had already sent him her own thought out answers. Was this working? Was she feeling closer to him? She looked at his answers again. They were so formal, he was clearly giving her the same carefully thought out answers he would use for an interview. They were truthful, but they were surface level. She felt mildly cheated. She had poured her heart out in her answers. Wasn’t that the point of all of this? Marian held off on sending him the third set. Maybe he was just getting fatigue from having to answer so many back to back. 

He called her that evening, the same time he always did. That was one good thing about Andrew, he was dependable. He never disappointed her, he always kept his word.   
“Did you get my email?” he asked her. “I haven’t seen your reply, yet. Wouldn’t there be one more set?”  
“Well, actually, I was kind of holding off,” she admitted. “You didn’t seem that into it.”  
“I was enjoying it,” he told her. “Did you not like my answers then?” His voice was full of worry, obviously aware that he had upset her in some way.   
“It’s just, we’ve been talking for weeks and I still feel like I don’t know you any more than everyone else does, you know? Like there’s this persona that I just can’t crack past.”  
On the other end of the line, he gave a deep sigh. Oh no, she worried. She had pissed him off.   
“I’m sorry, it’s not you…” he offered. “It’s just it’s still such a new relationship, and everything is so much more complicated with me. I have to be careful-”  
“What? You think I’m going to leak your deepest, darkest secrets online or something?” she demanded. Her feelings were wounded by this accusation. Since he had known her, she had kept their relationship so discreet. Most of her friends didn’t even know.   
“Of course not.” He was trying to brush it off, but she remained unconvinced. Neither spoke for a few moments, and then finally Andrew cleared his throat.   
“Maybe it doesn’t work long distance.”  
She caught her breath, the tears already forming. She had seen this coming. He had grown weary of her.   
“I understand,” she managed to choke out. She willed herself to do this gracefully. If it was over, then let her at least be able to leave with some scrap of dignity left. “Well, it was nice while it lasted. Honestly, Andrew, I wish you the best-”  
“Oh, right, ehm,” he seemed so taken aback, stammering over his words. “Right, I…”  
Marian felt her entire face constricting as she tried to figure out what the hell was happening right now. On the other end of the line, Andrew was apologizing though even he seemed completely at a loss.   
“Andrew!” she interrupted. He stopped himself.   
“Yes?”  
“What were you talking about when you said it didn’t work long distance?” she demanded.  
“Oh, the game. I’m sorry, I know it was important to you, and if that’s what this issue is-”  
“Andrew! I’m sorry, I was so confused. I thought that you meant we didn’t work long distance!”  
“What?” he yelped. “No, I didn’t mean that at all….Do you not think it’s working?”  
“It’s not easy,” she admitted. “But, I want to keep trying.”  
He gave an audible sigh of relief.   
“Thank Christ, my heart about stopped there for a moment. No, I meant….Isn’t the game meant to be played in person? Aren’t we supposed to look in each other’s eyes?” She understood then, finally, what he had been getting at.   
“You want to wait until we see each other in person,” she guessed, trying to hide her disappointment. Who knew when that would be? What would they do in the meantime? Every time she felt like this relationship might be meaningful, someone put the brakes on again, and they were just stuck.   
“Actually, I, ehm, do you want….I was thinking I would fly you out to meet us at Bonnaroo. We’ll be there for all three days. I could get us one of the tents…”  
“A tent?” Marian hesitated. She wanted to see him. But, she was not outdoorsy. She had never even slept in a sleeping bag.  
“They’re, like fancy tents,” he explained quickly. “With a bed and air conditioning.”  
“Okay,” Marian quickly agreed, realizing it was silly to pretend there was anything that would keep her from seeing him.

Marian had never been to a music festival before, and was very quickly overwhelmed by the people and buzzing activity around her. Bonnaroo was like a high school reunion for musicians, and within her first couple hours she barely had time to get two words in with Andrew before he was greeted and carried off into conversation with yet another friend. Finally, he grabbed her hand firmly and pulled her through the trees to a line of big, white tents. Andrew led her inside. He was right, they were fancy. Fancier than some of the hotel rooms she had stayed in. Most of the bands stayed in their tour buses in the RV lot, so it was quieter out here. Andrew motioned for her to sit in one of the lounge chairs while he raided the minifridge. He tossed her a bottle of water, sitting down across from her.   
“We were on set three,” he reminded her. She had finally emailed him her answers to the second set so they could start on even ground.   
“We both have to make three ‘We’ statements,” she explained. “I can go first, if you need an example.” He motioned for her to continue. “We are both here in this tent,” she started, lamely. “We're both Pisces. We both love Tom Waits.”  
Andrew hesitated for a minute, trying to come up with the right answers. He leaned forward, absentmindedly fidgeting with the label of his water bottle.   
“We’re both scared of what this is. We are both worried that we’ll be more invested than the other. We’re both in way over our heads already.”  
Marian bit her lip, catching herself. Those hazel eyes bore into her, reminding her that she couldn’t hide. He saw her. She had known set three would be a killer, that the questions were deep. She nervously rattled them off, and Andrew answered every single one as openly as he could force himself. She wasn’t able to read him as clearly as he could read her, but now he was, forcing himself open. For her.   
When at last they had both answered all thirty-six questions, she opened her timer app. Why was her hand shaking so much as she set it for four minutes. She leaned forward, gazing into his eyes. Even though it wasn’t part of the exercise, Andrew quickly took her hands into his.   
It seemed like no time at all had passed when finally the timer ended in shrill blasts. She pulled her hands away from Andrew, jabbing at the screen to silence the mechanical wails. It was only then that she realized her cheeks were sticky with tears. 

Later, they made their way to the main stage, flashing their artist and guest wristbands to get into the coveted rafters. Down below, an artist she had never heard of was covering an old Tom Waits song. Andrew stood behind her, arms wrapped around her front, gently swaying her to the music. Mariana closed her eyes, grasping his arms tightly. She tried to keep her logical mind at work, tried to ignore the words the musician down below was singing now…..  
“And I think that I just fell in love with you.”


End file.
